In Azerbaijan, a leading critic of the government has been escorted out of the country by Switzerland’s foreign minister.The activist has spent 10 months at the Swiss embassy, trying to avoid arrest. Meanwhile, there are calls to boycott a big sporting event because of the country’s human rights record. The European Games have just opened near the capital, Baku.

Earlier this week the pro-Turkish FactCheckArmenia.com group drew fire when it took out full-page newspaper and prominent billboard adverts in the US, including in the Wall Street Journal and New York’s Times Square, implying that Armenia and Russia were lying about the atrocities.

Stretching from River Debed south towards the foothills of the Halab mountain range in the Lori province, the IBA encompasses the land between the rivers Pambak and Marts and provides habitats from mountain steppes with prominent rocky outcrops to dense forests with closed canopies, and subalpine and alpine meadows. Because of this diversity, the region faces diverse threats, such as overgrazing, intensive agriculture, mining and logging.

The purpose of the centre was to have local communities provide services and activites as ecotourism in the Lori region where Dsegh is located. This in turn supports and helps to improve their socio-economic status, as it provides numerous services to the tourists. In a virtuous cycle, the latter motivates these rural communities to play an active role in conserving natural resources and offering ways to solve problems by creating a balance between nature and human development.

After five years of hard work, ASPB opened the Dsegh Nature Visitor Centre to the public on 12 November, 2015. The centre was established with financial support from SVS (BirdLife in Switzerland), the UNDP’s GEF Small Grants Program in Armenia, the Rhône-Alpes Regional Council in France and ASPB, as well as in close partnership with Biotope, a French consultancy.

The centre includes a meeting and cinema hall, and a space with state-of-the-art exhibits on Dsegh’s wildlife. The centre also provides tourists with detailed and comprehensive information about the region and local sites (including bed and breakfasts run by locals where they can stay) as well as annual events, all of which will enhance the visitor’s understanding of the unique environment of Dsegh.

For the more outdoor-inclined, the centre incorporates tours and two hiking nature trails that people can hike themselves or explore with the help of local guides. “In designing and installing our trails, ASPB worked hard to have the lowest level of impact on the land possible while providing access to these special places,” said Luba Balyan, co-founder of ASPB. “We look at the forest as our home, as someplace that we want to protect and revere.”

ASPB believes that the Nature Visitor Centre in Dsegh will inspire the establishment of other information eco-centers in the country and South Caucasus region. ASPB hopes this innovative network will support not only the protection of nature but also the livelihood of all local communities across the region and will bring Armenia one step closer to nature.

Shortly afterwards, Shahin and seven other NIDA activists were arrested. Some of them were tortured. As a result, Shahin, who was 17 years old at the time, lost four of his front teeth. His friend Mammad lost hearing in one ear.

Shahin and the rest of the activists are currently in detention on false charges of illegal firearms possession and plotting mass disorder. They were all sentenced for between 6 and 8 years on the same day that Azerbaijan was declared as the next Chairman of the principal human rights institution in Europe, the Council of Europe.

Azerbaijan has objected to the participation of the Socialist Party MP Van Bommel in a conference on the Nagorno-Karabakh region. At the Free University in Amsterdam there will be coming weekend a meeting about that region, under control since 1994 by Armenian troops and militias.

In a letter to parliament the embassy of Azerbaijan writes that they deeply regret Van Bommel’s presence at the congress.

Propaganda

“Pure intimidation and propaganda,” Van Bommel called the letter. He says he does not care about it.

The embassy expects that the “authorities will ensure that Van Bommel at the seminar on non-recognized countries will act in accordance with international law.” When asked to clarify this the embassy remained silent. …

MPs announced that they will jointly express their displeasure towards the embassy.

The Dutch government must continue to call on the Turkish government to seek rapprochement with Armenia and to seek reconciliation. An overwhelming majority of parliament voted for a motion to that effect. Only the PVV and the Kuzu-Öztürk group voted against.

The Kuzu-Öztürk group are two MPs of Turkish ancestry, elected for the PvdA party (junior partner in the Dutch coalition government). They split from the PvdA because of differences on various issues (eg, they are more sympathetic to the Erdogan government in Turkey than the PvdA is).

Beautiful bird paradise in Armenia at risk after misuse of water resources

By Alessia Calderalo, Wed, 26/11/2014 – 08:54

Imagine a place where the Armenian, Turkish, Iranian and Azerbaijani borders converge on the banks of the Araks River, a place home to 220 bird species, a place full of water, plants and animals. This place, well known for its natural richness and beauty, is the Armash, one of the 18 Important Bird and Biodiversity Areas (IBAs) in Armenia and among one the richest ornithological hotspots in the Caucasus. Sadly, it has recently been declared in danger.

Originally, Armash IBA was a semi desert area, but thanks to a series of man-made changes and the introduction of fish farming practices, the IBA developed a unique assemblage of habitats including water channels and ponds with wetland vegetation that gave the area its great conservation value. Armash is home to Globally Threatened species like Marbled Teal and White-headed Duck, and hosts rarities like Eurasian Spoonbill and the graceful White-tailed Lapwing, which cannot be found elsewhere in Armenia.

Armash was recognised as an IBA of global importance due to its exceptional natural richness and its importance for migratory birds that cross its national borders during Spring and Autumn. Unfortunately, over the last decade, water resources have been misused and the water springs used for drinking and irrigation in the villages of Ararat province have begun to dry up the area, threatening its unique wildlife.

The Armenian Society for the Protection of Birds (ASPB; BirdLife Partner) has been working for several years to save the area. The organisation has collaborated with the US Embassy, USAID and the Armenian Nature Protection Ministry to find solutions [for] its conservation. As a result of this collaboration, several alternative schemes of channelling water to Armash fish ponds have been proposed and developed.

However, despite these efforts, the water crisis persists and many ponds in the Armash IBA are quickly drying out, and are being replaced by farming lands. This is creating a transformation of the whole ecosystem in the area. Which gives an alarming prospective; if the authorities do not tackle the issue of waste water by adopting and implementing more restrictive laws, it is likely that species such as Marbled Teal will disappear.

ASPB hopes that the Armash IBA will be preserved as the natural paradise it has been for many years, and that the surrounding countries will actively contribute to this conservation.

Over 40% of marine Important Bird and Biodiversity Areas (marine IBAs) in Europe are not protected, and two thirds of EU countries only protect 3% or less of their marine area (Territorial sea and Exclusive Economic Zones). These are some of the shocking findings of Birdlife’s report “Marine Natura 2000 Progress Assessment” released today. The report assessed the progress of 23 EU coastal countries in designating Special Protection Areas, using as reference BirdLife’s marine IBAs: here.

Beginning in April 1915, the Ottoman Empire, which had entered the war on the side of the Central Powers, launched a campaign of extermination against its Armenian population. The bourgeois nationalist Young Turks, who had come to power in 1908, now found themselves surrounded by the Allied powers. They had suffered significant defeats at the hands of Russia in the Caucasus Campaign of 1915, thwarting attempts to reclaim territories previously lost along the Ottoman Empire’s eastern borders.

Claiming the defeats were the result of support given to Russia by the predominantly Christian Armenian population within the Empire, the Young Turks set out on a program of mass murder and forced relocation of the Armenian people. As many as 1.5 million Armenians are believed to have perished.

Akin’s film opens in Mardin, a city in southeastern Turkey. It is 1915, and the first imperialist war is raging. We are on the eve of the Armenian Genocide. Upon returning home from work one evening, blacksmith Nazaret Manoogian (Tahar Rahim) and his family worry that the violence of the war will finally reach them. They hear news of Allied forces arriving in Gallipoli. That night, their worst fears are realized.

Turkish soldiers round up the men of Mardin and march them into the desert. Told that all men over the age of 15 have now been conscripted into the military, they are forced into slave labor and made to build roads. Many are worked in the hot sun until they collapse and die.

The worker-prisoners witness large groups of women and children from the city of Kharput, in eastern Anatolia, marched away in front of them, part of the forced deportations carried out through death marches into Mesopotamia.

Nazaret and the other captive Armenians work until they are, one day, led away from their camp. Tied together and forced to kneel, all but Nazaret are executed. He is only spared because the soldier chosen to murder him hesitates and cannot bring himself to kill his prisoner. A wound in his neck, however, will prevent Nazaret from speaking for the remainder of his life.

Taken for dead, Nazaret is able to escape his captors and begins a long journey to reunite with his twin daughters, believed to be the only remaining survivors of his family. His search will take him to Syria, Lebanon, Cuba and the United States.

Akin’s film is a kind of Odyssey of the Armenian Genocide, in which a lone hero floats from episode to episode within the horrible event. This leads to many significant moments, but on the whole the different parts of his film don’t feel entirely connected or worked through. One is given glimpses of things, but a fuller picture remains somewhat hazy. It is a sometimes moving but often disappointing work.

Among the most disturbing sequences in Akin’s film is Nazaret’s journey to the death camps of Ras al-Ayn (on the Syrian-Turkish border today), where those who have not yet been killed lie starving to death. Such moments are brutal and at times difficult to watch. One does not feel, however, that Akin has filmed them in an exploitative manner. His approach during these sequences is generally sympathetic and sensitive. The performance of Tahir Rahim is also quite strong. The actor is able to communicate a wide range of emotions though he does not speak during the second half of the film.

Sequences depicting genuine warmth and even humor between survivors of the genocide, as they gather together to watch a showing of Charlie Chaplin’s The Kid in Aleppo, Syria, make a strong impression. This is also true of the scenes inside a soap factory used as emergency housing for Armenian refugees. In their own way, these scenes bring out the horror of what was done to these people far more than the scenes of brutality and violence could alone. One feels the liveliness, the culture, the different attitudes and sensibilities of people.

To his credit, Akin has also not simply made all the Turkish citizens depicted in the film into monsters or supporters of the genocide. In one scene, after witnessing the anguish in the faces of a Turkish mother and her young child being cursed and stoned by a bitter group of survivors, Nazaret decides he can take no part in the violence against them.

Unfortunately, the second half of the film, following Nazaret’s search for his daughters, is considerably weaker than the first. While there are moving moments to be found, one senses the scope of the film growing increasingly narrow. The story gradually becomes more and more a tale of one man’s determination to find his children, a tribute to the spirit of a strong-willed individual up against tremendous odds. The genocide and its meaning drift more and more into the background.

Akin is perhaps overwhelmed by the history involved and the scale of the horror produced during the genocide. He has tried to include a great deal in his film, but he also passes over too much too quickly. The fate of Armenian survivors across the world, their experience as immigrants in new and different countries is a worthwhile and interesting theme. But these later sequences, in which Nazaret travels from country to country, don’t carry the weight of the events in the film’s first half. Here one tends to feel as if one were peering at an historical event through a keyhole. Too much is left out.

Many of the more interesting threads from the film’s first half are also left dangling. Nazaret had earlier expressed his anger over the gap between the rich and workers like himself. Nothing comes of it; yet it is a central question. What was lurking behind the brutality of Turkish nationalism and behind the First World War itself? What forces and social pressures set all of this into motion? Why, in other words, did all of this happen? The questions one is left with at the end are those the filmmakers did not themselves begin to address.

In the end, behind Akin’s epic of the Armenian Genocide, there is just too much conventional thinking and storytelling.